Pierre Poilievre is simply addressing belief that the current establishment is heading in the wrong direction and that he has a vision to turn it around. That will seem dark to those who are happy with the direction that Trudeau's government has taken. However, Trudeau has built his slim majority on dividing Canadians. That will fail. Poilievre is raising the voices of those whom Trudeau has left behind in his divisive quest for power.
My thoughts exactly. I think we are already at the tipping point. Mostly caused by 7 years of a anti--productive government, exacerbated by COVID-19 and governments that have done almost everything wrong. We need to be able to get back to work.
Yes anti productivity. Making people dependent on a system that is financially broke and relying on a tax system that is maxed and a debt that will never be repayable is not doing anything for anyone. It is crushing the middle class and speaking of crushing how about the Canadian healthcare system. I have never seen such incompetence on so many levels.
No need to be insulting Terry, provide us the links for your proven fact. A county with resources and an economy like Canada should always have a AAA credit rating- that’s does not absolve its managers from justifiable criticism, nor are these credit rating agencies the arbitrator of the discussion. Recent history has stripped them of that absolute authority if they ever had it. Inflation does crush the middle and lower classes. That’s a fact. Literally in textbooks. Take a look at South America in the 20th century - Argentina is a great case study. I’ll agree Canada is not broke- but it sure could use a Paul Martin to step in right now
Pay it back? As opposed to the multitude of ‘government workers’ ( how’s that for an oxymoron?) that ‘work from home’ in their new home offices furnished and equipped with government funds?(provided by the taxes extracted from the private sector - that had work hours reduced and occupancy restrictions mandated - if they were permitted to keep their doors open at all)…
The public debt has swollen to over one trillion dollars as a result of panic, mismanagement and the compassionate need for the political survival of this government. Employment statistics indicate the job growth numbers in the economy have been primarily (86%) in government, which the private sector, of course, pays for… We cannot afford this ballooning, corpulent government - it is unaccountable in every sense of the word.
Why in the world would you think that Skippy has an answer to inflation that has hit pretty much every country in the world. Economists cannot agree on just what brought it on this time, or what number if things had a hand in causing it and how long before it passes. Japan has only 2. something % inflation but they were coming out of deflationary cycle, that's not fun either. Some South American countries are seeing inflation of near 200%. The US, the most powerful country on our globe and the worlds largest economy is at 8. 6 or thereabouts, a couple of points higher than us. It's not just Canada. Everywhere is connected to everywhere else. We trade with everyone.
If some bright-eyed economist came up with an inflationary-beating idea, they would probably make her Queen of the world. Harper was an economist, cough, cough, and Skippy thinks that because he stood close to him, it has rubbed off. He's wrong. He has no more answers, even less actually, than anyone who really understands this stuff. And beside, Conservatives don't do that.
Would those be the same agencies that gave high ratings to derivatives based on subprime mortgages that saw hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of triple-A securities downgraded to "junk" status by 2010?
Simply, merely, just, describing PP as if understanding what he is about is all so easy and all so good. PP has no vision, not that he's said out loud or tweeted. He has no policies, just snappy one liners. PP is dividing Canadians along with quite a few who consider themselves conservatives. And when PP paints himself in a corner he simply, merely, just ignores it.
Trudeau has the power, he is the PM. There is no quest except that of wee PP.
As a car enthusiast -- the auto industry has effectively had a carbon cap since the 1970s in the form of tightening fuel economy legislation. Carbon emissions are directly related to fuel consumption. Frankly, that legislation has by and large been successful at the individual vehicle level (nobody would have imagined full-size pickups that can tow 10,000 lbs, have well over 300 hp and get better than 20 mpg in the mid-70s!). As well, the carbon tax at the pumps mean that drivers have an incentive to either choose more fuel efficent vehicles or drive less, though we'll see how that plays out. One of the weaknesses of this approach is that leaps in fuel economy can make it economically viable for people to drive more, meaning carbon emissions stay the same (or even get worse). So, it's one tool, but not a 'silver bullet'.
As someone else pointed out below, those regs have also incentivised automakers to electrify their fleets -- both to offset the impact of higher consuming, high margin vehicles (those aforementioned full-sized pickups, for one) and to produce vehicles that are likely to get cheaper, not more expensive, to produce as time and development marches on.
On a recent flight back from the UK the pilot apologized to the passengers for having to wear masks- because, he sadly noted, “ the science is different in Canada”… a brief but damning statement that pretty effectively summarized what has happened to this country.
Relax! I don’t want you to hyperventilate through that mask… The science in the rest of the world is a rigorous process based on fact and observation - here it was (and still is) based on observation, optics and politics… Not so much about saving lives, as careers and positions. Those “thousands of lives saved” were the bureaucrats ‘working from home’ as small businesses, blue collar and service workers were reduced to government handouts as their livelihoods died…
Vaccine mandates for border crossers still allow for variants to enter the country. There is only one way to prevent variants from entering the country. Trudeau was politicizing a public health issue. That's divisive and crooked as hell.
Terry - we love having you here - you are an almost daily reminder of what we are up against and how hard it is to get people to change their minds once they've made them up.
They mandated their own citizens be vaccinated to travel via air/rail domestically. Something no other western democracy did.
Carbon caps via EV conversions is not the same as carbon caps on the process of producing automobiles. Which is the standard applied to the energy industry.
You absolutely get point 1 Terry... and certainly the HON Mr. Joel Lightbound did as well (my pick for future Lib leader). “A decision was made to wedge and to stigmatize”
Well said. These laptop elite just cannot read the room, even when they seem to be trying to do so. Canada is suffering, is at the bottom on economic growth tables, and yet this author will never be hit but what lower growth will do to the average Canadian.
I disagree. There was nothing sly about Colin's article. PP's only hidden agenda is scoring some nice axe-hewn wood, at a steal of a price, for his man cave.
Harper's hidden agenda is ongoing. It never stopped when he was voted out by Canadians.
This mainstream take drives me mad. We have a Prime Minister and cabinet who are actively destroying our energy industry and have now got their sights on our farming industry - all to serve a globalist agenda. Every litre of oil not pumped in Canada is pumped somewhere else with less environmental regulation. Every pound of food not grow in Canada will be replaced elsewhere - or God help some third world family - not at all. Yet we are told Pollievre is an extremist. The problem the author is going to have is that word is already worn out, along with racist, transphobe, white nationalist, etc. It is applied to everyone not a card carrying progressive all the time. Keep pumping out tripe like this - less and less of us are listening.
I take issue with your statement that the fertilizer issue is fake news by the Conservatives.
I defy you to identify any farm leader in Canada who received any advance notice of the 30% reduction targets for nitrogen emissions or an invitation to participate in the development of a emission reduction strategy.
“Targets are wish list stuff to begin discussions”.
Any Government that is sincere and respectful would invite the people who will bear the burden of the targets to the table BEFORE issuing targets.
Justin Trudeau does not collaborate and is a terrible listener. Canadian farmers can expect the 30% targets to be enforced, probably by a tax at the front end (manufacturing) or retail end (POS).
Gee. Your fetish for parroting the latest Liberal spin/talking points continues to paint you into a corner.
Do some research on the Liberal emissions “targets” on fertilizer, including the harm to the Canadian economy if the targets become mandatory. Considering the Liberal penchant for being less than honest about climate action and how top down mandates continue to wreck havoc on the Canadian economy, farmers are justified to be concerned that they will be the next wedge that pits urbanites and rural communities against each other.
A measurement of decline has nothing to do with wokeness or 24/7 virtue signalling but looking all around and seeing unsettling things like the gutting of respect for Parliament and the lack of public debate on important issues as a result. Or how about the measurable decline in the ability of government to do core services?
Our public health system has been limping along for 25 years and political leaders along the way have become accustomed to pasting over the cracks but the day of reckoning has arrived. The decline is measurable in long wait lists and a burnt out nursing staff.
Our judiciary has crossed over into law making territory, that is measurable decline as Legislators become reactionary to the Courts instead of enacting law in the interests of the public.
Our sovereign interests as measurable in military capacity to defend ourselves is an international parody. The military is demoralized, running decrepit equipment and the political masters are pleased with things as they are. At this moment, the military is worse than in decline, it is near collapse.
I could go on and on, but if Poilievre sees decline and speaks openly about, well it the God forsaken truth. We can’t change things for the better if we don’t admit there is a problem.
I made a glaring omission regarding decline in the post above. Canadians can measure a serious decline in accountability in all of our public institutions. No one seems to be accountable for anything anymore. There isn’t even an effort extended to pass the buck, when big mistakes take place even to the point of being offensive to a civilized mind, there is a collective shrug. No firings, little or no contrition and even worse: those standing in the middle of the wreckage are rewarded with a pay raise.
The result is a race to the bottom of mediocrity. The concept of excellence has become some quaint notion of the past.
Good leaders strive for excellence from themselves and those that they choose to become enablers of a vision for forward progress. Good leaders will never get it right every time, but learn from mistakes made and bring about corrective action for change. Justin Trudeau has devolved into an acceptance of mediocrity, surrounding himself with group think clones that match the output of the leader.
None of the author’s argument alters the fact that Pierre Pollievre has tapped into something visceral.
People feel left behind. They believe that long-standing institutions (like governments) have dropped the ball, or that they only work to enhance the lives (and investment portfolios) of those who have already “made it”.
And they are arguably not wrong. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the average family to make ends meet right now. People are afraid - if you listen you’ll hear the fear everywhere.
Trust in government is at an all-time low, and disinformation is rife. Even trust in the business sector - which for a long while has outstripped trust in government (or, heaven forbid, media) - is waning fast. And scandalous corporate profits in pretty much every sector aren’t helping.
Folks on the progressive (or even moderate) side of the debate had better take heed. Calling into question Pollievre’s bona fides ain’t gonna cut it. Real solutions for really complex challenges have to be formulated, communicated and implemented with urgency. It will be hard work, but there is so much to lose if we fail to address the justifiable anger that’s been simmering for a long while.
I understand Terry. But MORE CANADIANS voted against Trudeau by a huge majority. If you add the NDP vote to the Conservatives it is more than 60% so what. My point is that only 5,556,491 Canadians votes for the Liberals.
Dan, there is no spot on the ballot that says "I vote against ....." Crunching your percentages won't work. How about the people who didn't vote at all, can we say they voted against the Cons?
"What he telegraphs is the vision of a social order at a tipping point". H-m-m-m-m...having re-read his para. 6, sounds like a social order "tipping point to me".
Horgan damns "with faint praise"...journalism turned yellow. He takes his extremist projections and coats them in jello..."he does sound like something--something different than what we're used to hearing....an internet language of decline". What bunkish ignorance. The internet is not new. To claim Poilievre has some new insight into its use damns its 55 years of users to being slow learners.
Poilievre is, indeed, "something different" and how that difference will play out is anyone's (including Horgan's) guess. He may fail...as has Trudeau. But this hit piece is a poor substitute for intelligent forecasting.
55 years? If you have been on the internet for 55 years then I'm guessing someone changed your meds. Colin never said the internet was new. Obviously reading comprehension is difficult for you. I do disagree with that one item in an otherwise excellent article. PP is not something different. We know what he is and what we are getting with him, we are just waiting to see how off PP really is.
I agree with most of what is stated here. My problem is not so much the rhetoric being spilled as the fact that he has no solutions to the problems he attempts to bring to light.
A fault in most politicians these days, it seems to me is the demonization of opponents not the offering of solutions to the citizenships needs. I have yet to hear Mr. Poilievre (a gatekeeper and elite) offer a rational answer to any of his beefs. I admit he may be an intelligent man but he still strikes me as someone shouting at clouds and trying to tear it all down as opposed to someone committed to building a long term society for the good of all citizens.
Personally I find this kind of politicking abhorrent, it hits to the lowest common denominator of our society. I can not imagine his brand of populism ever being attractive to me but if it causes the other parties to wake up to issues that have been ignored by most members of political class, it may serve a purpose. The underlying violence of many of his supporters, reflecting from the actions to our south, may not be his fault but he certainly doesn’t do enough to discredit their stances or separate himself from the more radical players.
I have never thought highly of the man since I first saw him in parliament many years ago. He may have matured but I will never support him or his style of politics
It is premature to get into specifics. Poilievre has just finished the first leg of a long, long race.
However, some formidable ideas toward improvement need to be released soon. Reports yesterday indicate that lowly Liberal MPs are pleading for a tack toward the center before it’s too late, so the race is on to solidify ideas and get them out for public view. The other small issue is the fluidity of Liberal messaging and their notorious ability to abscond ideas from elsewhere. As much as Liberals enjoy demonizing Conservatives, they will be on the lookout for good ideas that are finding traction with voters, regardless of the source.
Firing Tiff Macklen is actually a key and formidable idea. The BoC failed in its job of keeping inflation close to 2%. That fact alone justifies firing him in the cause of accountability.
It has struck fear into the hearts of the entire elite of this country, because they can't bear the thought of elite accountability.
And accountability is the one Conservative policy no Liberal would ever steal.
I think you will find that the world failed at maintaining a 2% inflation rate. Not something any Canadian government or central bank has a hope of controlling.
This is exactly what I mean - constant excuses being made, with the implicit assumption being that we must be nice or fair to officials, with literally no other reason given.
If the PM said, "you let inflation get out of hand, you're fired", it would help convince normal people that the Bank will now be serious about getting all the way back to the target.
Normal people? Normal people know that PP can't fire the G. BoC. Normal people already know that the G. BoC is serious. It has nothing to do with being nice or fair. Harper could be the G. BoC and he could not be fired for inflation.
We've been over this again and again. Why won't you believe anyone?
Just how much control over world economies do you actually believe Canada has, either the government or bank. On a global scale we did relatively well for our national inflation numbers, averaging just under 7%. Also on a global scale Canada has about only 2.5% of the wealth. We simply cannot affect a global problem alone.
So what? The Bank had a clear objective, massively failed. Fire the boss, don't accept excuses.
In the private sector, if I fail, I go out of business. No whining about how it's not my fault will save me. That's what people who aren't civil servants mean by "accountability".
I'm not cruel, though: he should remain eligible for EI.
Is this because technically he would have to demand that the board of directors fire him? This may be a valid point, but I suspect that there is a way that the PM could fire him in practice.
Or are you suggesting that it would be wrong for the PM to fire the governor for failing at his job?
Either way, you are only emphasizing my point, which is that bringing back accountability will be vigorously fought by many.
In all the years I have been aware of PP I have never seen him get behind anything good for Canadians. He's been an attack dog on command to help distract from what the supposed grownups were doing. He went on a tear about 2x4s just before the price started to drop again. He didn't have a solution he just waved bits of wood around and pointed fingers. I remember him chasing down parents of kids for some Harper tax thing. He didn't want one family to miss out. Creepy weird stalking behaviour. And talk about demonizing. Have you got some time? This puppy has got some serious demonizing on record.
You don't have to like or admire the Liberals. I'm not one. But don't try to sell me a PP I already know and do not care for.
Done. Mr.Poilievre said nothing I haven’t heard before. That’s a half hour of my life I won’t get back. I have a hard time believing he has a workable solution to anything he brought up. He has only made some very good sound bites for the press. Mr.Trudeau, whom I have never voted for said everything in two words, “responsible government “. On that I can agree. It is what Canadians of all stripes want.
I have watched Mr. Poilievre for 20 years, I have never liked his personal or his party’s direction so a populist speech is not changing that. I disapproved of many of the Harper government decisions from the anti- science, anti environmental moves, the sketchy political machinations throughout their time in office to that atrocious 31 year FIPA agreement with China. I have absolutely no reason to think a Poilievre led government will be anymore to my liking.
I respect your effort. I thought his ideas on affordable housing were workable e.g. but would be difficult to achieve with the multiple levels of government. Still its the best idea on that front I've heard yet. I suppose that your long history with Poilievre will make it hard for him to pull the wool over your eyes but I hope that he can pull together workable solutions that Canadians get get behind. If not, well, more of the same I guess.
I would hope that PP can pull together for some workable solutions that would benefit all Canadians. But I am not going to hold my breath. PP does not play well with others.
If his housing ideas would be too difficult to implement why is he not figuring out ways to make it less so? Why is he bringing it up at all if it's not feasible. Or is it just to throw shade on the Libs, JT specifically. The feds dropped the ball on housing decades ago. No one of any party has felt it a necessary thing to push for.
There is much more than housing to deal with and I don't think Skippy can do the job let alone do it well.
I think the author is onto something here, but my sense is they are missing the other element -- the techno-optimism that did (and still) underpins internet culture. It's the notion that these tools 'democratise' all kinds of things. Instead of news being filtered through a few national and local broadcasters, news is democratised -- with all kind of sources and points of view. Uber democratises the taxi industry, bypassing a whole bunch of rules and regulations. Google democratises knowledge -- providing a world's worth of knowledge to anyone with a computer and a browser.
In that context, railing against gatekeepers makes a lot of sense.
But, what we've seen is that this kind of democratisation isn't without its own issues. News comes from all kinds of sources, including voices we probably would have never discovered before (good) but so does waves of ignorance and disinformation -- and trying to distinguish between the two is actually a pretty heavy lift (bad). Uber created a new kind of flexible job that also offered greater urban mobility (good) but these jobs are poorly regulated -- and in some cases it's almost impossible to actually make money working in the gig economy, once the worker's actual costs/overheads are considered (bad). Having the world's knowledge at your fingertips is valuable (good) but -- like news -- not having a quick and easy way to know the quality (and verity) of the content makes sorting the true from the false, the fact from the opinion, a big job.
So, if Poliviere wants to apply this principle to governance, the question is -- how do you keep the benefits without falling into the demonstrated failures? If freeing us from 'gatekeepers' simply means we're all on our own to try to sort through the scams ... if it's just a way for big companies to avoid meaningful regulation ... if it simply means that the powerful have free reign to gain more power ... that isn't really democratisation at all. I continue to be skeptical -- but am willling to wait to see a policy platform and some meat behind the rhetoric.
Your premise is that people are stupid and need wise leaders to filter things for them and show them what to think and feel. I think most people have a good BS detector and know better than everyone else what works best for them. The whole idea of an internet mediated through some unelected clerisy is appalling to me. What the internet has really demonstrated is that the mainstream media are not objective and are steered by powerful external forces. They probably never were - but it takes all those weirdos on the internet blogging away to chip away at their myth making. I am more than happy to sort through the information myself and make my own judgements - as are most people. For example - I don't think King Charles is a lizard person - but I do think nearly everything we've been told about Covid is a lie, half lie, or lie by omission.
My premise is not "that people are stupid and need wise leaders to filter things for them." Morover, the idea that "people have a good BS detector and know better than everyone else what works best for them" aligns nicely with techno-optimism; the "wisdom of the crowd" is often in theme in why digital solutions are more effective.
I was (and with some healthy skepticism, still am) somewhat of a techno-optimist. A lot of good has come out of a revolution of digital tools and services, but as I've pointed out, that's not been without some significant issues. The digital platforms that have "democratised" so many activities are run by mostly monopolistic private entities where access can be bought and transparency is currently poor. In this realm, we have few gatekeepers -- and the public sector gatekeeping efforts we're considering in Canada are either going to be ineffectural or simply protect incumbent industries.
To me, getting rid of the gatekeepers (or cutting red tape, or whatever the current slogan is) has a nasty tendency to simply empower the strongest and the richest entities (multinational corporations) at the expense of everyone else. That's not because multinational corporations are inherently evil (I actually don't think they are), it's because it takes away what little counterbalance we have against that kind of trans-national corporate power.
The solution, I think, it for government to think of itself a little like a sports governing body, where the goal is to create a highly competitive playing field while protecting individual players.
I'm not a sports guy, but isn't there quite a track record of sports governing bodies colluding with team owners against the interests of the players over things like pay and safety?
A union of working class Canadians against the combination of government and large corporations is definitely something I can get on board with. What would it look like? A trucker/farmer convoy, perhaps?
If you think the trucker/farmer convoy was simply a union of good, honest working class Canadians that spontaneously was born to balance the power of big government and transnational corporations -- well, clearly you have way, way more faith in that movement than I do! Astroturfing (creating seemingly grassroots organizations to serve special interest goals) is way easier in the digital age -- cost effective and much easier to organize.
But, again, that goes back to my earlier comment on the difference between you and I seems to lie in who each of us trusts the least. There isn't really a convincing arguement when it comes to trust, though, especially when none of the actors is consistently trustworthy! So, we can agree to disagree, but I do find your posts thought provoking -- even when I disagree.
I think "movement" is overkill. I think it was a coalition of groups that were fed up with government overreach and felt that they weren't listened to -- which of course they weren't. But a movement --nah. Otherwise is would probably still exist.
What groups, and what are they doing now? Some of them joined TUPOC maybe?
Your coalition offered nothing that the rest of Canada was not already aware of. Some bright -light (/s) thought of a trucker convoy to Ottawa just like the one a few years ago, TY Pat King.
A go fund me was made and it made the legacy media so everyone started pitching in a few bucks. It snowballed.
There were so many different leaders of this thing you'd need a tour bus to haul them out together.
No one wanted to listen to the "truckers" 1st because they had months to complain but waited until the last moment to pull it out. 2nd there was nothing new to talk about. Your groups each had a different list of things with small overlaps with others. It was stupid.
Just because they parked in downtown Ottawa was not symbolic, it was stupid. The PM does not talk to every disgruntled person on their say so. The majority of Canadians, while they didn't like the mandates and the masks and no one likes to get stuck with a needle, did the best we could, and we did it well.
The convoy was essentially a bunch of whiners and hypocrites, collecting CERB or whatever else. Too many never saw any of the millions that was supposed to go to them.
So call it whatever you like Dan. It was a sh*t show.
I'm involved with a number of the organizations involved in the convoy, and if they are astroturf, then it is very subtle indeed - I'm not seeing it myself.
And certainly I would trust the people I met in Ottawa over government or large corporations:
When my daughter and oldest son and I went up the second weekend, she made a couple of cakes to give out to people on Saturday night on Wellington. We met a group of young people and my son, for some reason, handed his cellphone spare battery to one of them, so he could hold and cut the pieces of cake for them, which he did. But then, seeing some other people, my son dashed off to give them cake, and forgot about the battery. He didn't remember it until we got to the other end of Wellington, at which point we all assumed it was too late.
As we were going back to read the signs on Democracy Wall, one of the guys from that group spotted us and came up, and said that they had given the charger to a particular guy at the DJ booth near where we had met them, and put a handwritten sign on a lamppost in case we came looking for it. We went back and it was all so, and we regained the charger.
The convoy was like that - people going out of their way to help strangers. It restored my faith in regular Canadians, which had taken quite a beating after years of broad public support (admittedly under heavy propaganda) for mandates of all kinds.
Of course there were good, kind, wonderful people there. That does not mean we have to accept their take on mandates, masks, vaccines, not to mention bitcoin, born-again nut-bars, the Queen of Canada (off with their heads), the FREEDOM screaming, the MOU and it's supporters, Pat King giving tips and tricks on what to do at a protest, and the crap that the people of Ottawa had to put up with.
You went up the 2nd weekend. You didn't stay did you?
That hot-tub still gives me the creeps when I think of it. Yuk!
My contention is that the idea of keeping the benefits without falling into the demonstrated failures is unrealistic. Read Mancur Olson on distributional coalitions to see why. Rather than constantly trying to optimize and failing, we should simply satisfice.
Given that, we have to choose: get rid of the gatekeepers or leave them in place to abuse their power. I believe that many of them are doing more harm than good on net, so we should get rid of them. The correct approach is to look at each group of them separately, and if they are doing net harm, abolish them.
It's very very clear that big companies have completely captured regulators (737 Max, Covid mRNA vaccines). (Or are simply being dictated to by politicians, in the case of big media companies - look at the state AGs' suit against the White House). We are truly better off without them.
On "big companies have completely captured regulators" -- one of the risks in 'getting rid of gatekeepers' is that it potentially takes away any counterbalance to those large corporate interests. In fact, reducing the influence of large corporate actors requires effective gatekeepers -- especially in terms of preserving competition and ensuring that corporate interests don't simply socialize problems created by their businesses while privatizing profits.
I do like the notion that commentator (and business/marketing prof) Scott Galloway has put forward, which is we've decided that big corporate interests should be protected and individuals should compete where a healthy capitalist democracy would do the opposite -- ensure that corporations have to compete tooth and nail (as it maximises the benefits of capitalism) while protecting individuals (e.g. workers). Basically, we should stop bailing out companies and industries and instead support workers as sectors change/evolve.
As you point out -- corporate interests fund political campaigns and have a professional capability to continually lobby politicians for legislation that suits their interests. Smaller companies don't have that capacity and individual people simply have their vote. It creates an unhealthy asymmetry. My worry is that simply losing the gatekeepers opens up more ground for those large corporate interests as they have the resources and are deeply motivated to protect their interests in a way that's hard to compete with.
That said -- I'm still at the "working to define the problem" stage -- I don't have a lot of good answers (yet).
One potential solution is to more explicitly specify and limit the powers of gatekeepers, after reducing their number and reach. There should be relatively less lawmaking in the agencies (regulation) and more in parliament and legislatures (law). That aids transparency and discourages chicanery. Legislation should also be required to be succinct and readable, even page limits. But less and smaller government, with fewer and clearer but strictly enforced rules, is the way forward.
I disagree, which comes from my belief that politicians are more maliable (as their campaigns and infrastructure need donations to survive). Regulatory agencies are less easy to corrupt -- and most of the corruption seems to happen when people make the jump between industries and the agencies that regulate them (see -- financial regulation!).
A capable government relations program will literally give legislators draft legislation to propose, which serves two purposes. It gets adventagous language into the resulting legislation and plays on the fact that governments are always fighting the clock, trying to squeeze new initiatives into a four-ish year mandate. Regulatory agencies, on the other hand, are in for the long haul -- those folks ain't going anywhere!
Both regulatory agencies and elected officials are, of course, corruptable and -- to your point -- at least elected officials can be voted out. But, I think the motives and mechanisms tend to mean that big companies have more influence on elected officials as opposed to regulators -- and that a lot of the influence on regulators comes via elected officials.
The oligopolies are gatekeepers! The eliminate competition, stifle innovation and drive up prices and drive down wages. They need to be broken up an future mergers stopped.
The problem is that having a set body of regulators gives corporate interests something to work on and ties them together with the bureaucracy - look at how big companies and FDA/Health Canada collude to minimize discussion of mRNA adverse events in order to cover their mutual asses. This mutuality of regulators and regulated is inevitable - if regulators allow anything to go forward at all. And, of course, when they don't, that creates yet more problems.
Of course, once the state starts controlling the media, as in Canada and the USA today, mutuality becomes an unholy trinity of state, giant corporations, and media vs the people and small businesses. Which is where we are now, and why desperate measures are needed.
If there were no regulators, people could still sue in court for legal violations. Sure, the companies would have more money for court costs, making it a heavy lift (although class action lawyers do ok), but at least there would be no institutional interest within the state to cover up their misdeeds.
It's really important to bear in mind that incremental reform is simply not going to work. All the players are well entrenched and doing what they are doing for very good reasons. A government can only rule through the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy will only do what it "wants" to do. Any kind of direction from above, unless it is crystal clear and enforced by brutal discipline, will simply be ignored.
So figuring out the ideal scheme is not useful, unless you can also figure out how it will actually come to pass in the face of determined resistance - from the combination of bureaucracy, media, and large corporations.
It's funny -- I disagree, but in formulating a response, I quickly came to the conclusion that our differences really come down to: "who do you trust the least?"
I've worked in both government (and non-profits) and the private sector. My takeaway -- we tend to want to paint one group as evil ("the other") and I'm sure that exists in spots. But, in most cases, my observation is that people tend to follow where the strongest incentives nudge them.
In the private sector that tends to be growth, profit and competitive advantage. In the public sector, it's finding budget and gaining career advancement, which tends to follow the evolving policy goals of whatever government is in power. That tends to give the private sector more room to manouver -- it has more sources of funding and more avenues to advance its interests. So, I tend to be more skeptical of the private sector not because I think there is some kind of giant corporatist plot (and, if there is, I don't know the secret handshake) but because there's more opportunity there to amass capital, power and influence.
I think you are far more distrustful of public institutions and feel like individuals have the tools can counter the private sector threat (and, correct me if I'm mischaracterising you!)
But, honestly, trust is so much based on personal experience ... I think we'll always come at this problem differently, but I don't have a good argument that says: big public institutions are inherently more trustworthy! Plus there are other dimensions of trust beyond "are they evil", particularly "are the competent?!" which a lot of our institutions (public and private) aren't doing so well at recently!
I don't trust either of them, and I don't think either of them are on my side. They both have constraints from people like me, in the form of competition. And they both have an interest in eliminating competition through illicit means, which they will do if they can get away with it.
My real thinking is "how can we structurally assure, as much as possible, that they are opposed to each other, rather than in collusion?" In the conflict of the giants, we can have some freedom. When they work together against us, as now, forget about freedom.
Experience and public choice economics have clearly shown that regulation doesn't stop, and in fact increases, collusion. Let's learn from that.
When you say that businesses amass capital, power, and influence, I say "influence over what". Is the answer not, in fact, "government"? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I'm still waiting on someone to tell me exactly who are the gatekeepers, then tell me why they should go. What power are they abusing? Groups of gatekeepers? Who should regulate the airlines and vaccines and media? Which state AG is suing the White House and why should we care?
Olson died in 1998. Has no economist expanded or developed his work since?
Can't remember an article that so hit the nail on the head, but the nail is through the author's own point. Yes, Poilievre speaks in atmospheric language but that's because he correctly reads that the atmosphere created by Trudeau is one of complete and absolute fantasy, of a Canada that is evil and must be ripped apart and made whole again in his leftist image. Poilievre, rightly, rejects Trudeau's fantasy and instead is reflecting back what people are telling him: it's getting harder and harder to live day by day. That's the problem, and this comms 'expert' falls into the same trap that most all of the laptop fall into, they can't see it's getting harder because for them, it's not harder. Grow up.
In his last sentence he seems to be doing exactly what he is accusing Poillievre of doing. A quick reading of Mr. Horgan's Linked-In cv is quite informative.
Mr. Horgan, What logic supports the conclusion that you are drawing? Because Mr. Polievre is telling us that things are broken, when he becomes Prime Minister we will be at greater risk? We have the motivation to fix things when we are convinced that they are broken. Mr. Polievre has the motivation to fix things.
The concern is that he has no intention of fixing things. He's telling people what they want to hear to gain power. We know he's an ideologue. That's someone who follows a book instead of reality. The book appears to be anything out of the Heritage Foundation in the U.S.. He tried to introduce Republican voter suppression methods in Canada. As Senator Frum said on the radio, "Why should we help students vote when they don't vote for us?" He adores Thomas Sowell who is a PR guy for trickle-down economics. PP is basically an errand boy for the Koch Network. I think this is why he dodges the media and debates because he doesn't want to answer questions on this. I'd like to know if he thinks the last American election was stolen. The answer to that question would be very telling.
Where are the facts? Where is the proof that PP is an errand boy for the Koch network? Who says that trickle down economics did not serve its purpose at the time? Does PP dodge media more than others and all? Are these opinions well supported with facts or is this response perpetrating misinformation. We need a healthy debate that welcomes all opinions but mudslinging responses and insinuations play to the trolls. We should all raise our game in these discussions if we want our children to learn how to have a civil debate.
Ok, let's have a healthy debate. I finally looked up "conservative movement" and discovered that it was started in the '60s by William F. Buckley and others to repeal the New Deal (!) Since then the Koch brother(s) have been the significant funders. They and their cronies are behind the Tea Party, climate change denial, gerrymandering, voter suppression and packing the US courts with sympathetic judges and on and on. They pretty much control the conservative movement and anyone who is on board is their lackey whether they realize it or not. Trickle down economics DID serve and is still serving it's purpose by making the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. THIS is what most of us are upset about. Call it "globalism" or "neo-liberalism" but it's all about sucking money to the top and it has worked way too well. The best book I can recommend is "Democracy in Chains" by Prof. Nancy MacLean. If you want to understand current American politics t's all there. And, yes, Canadian politicians, right or left, are very influenced by their American counterparts. PP has dodged a few leadership debates. I do not trust any politician that does that because it means they don't respect us enough to answer the hard questions. Our problem is that both Liberals and Conservatives serve the corporate masters. Neither PP or Justin are talking about cutting welfare for the oil industry, for example. And that is heavily influenced by the Koch crowd. Those people know global warming is real but they don't care because they make gobs of money from it and don't want to stop. That's where we are now. IMHO.
Actually the Conservative Party dates back to Robert Peel in the 1830s. Here we had a Conservative as our first Prime Minister. In the US, there has always been a conservative/progressive divide. Buckley, for his part actually started the National Review in the mid 1950s.
Peel, as in Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, UK PM. Father of the modern conservative party, almost 200 years ago, which makes him not so modern. Definitely an elite.
Exactly. great for the rich...economic failure for everyone else. Like the "brilliance (note sarcasm) of deficit financing, one of the biggest lies ever told.
It’s unfortunate that our current prime minister has done so much to encourage the polarization and destabilization of our citizens. Perhaps it’s just the culmination of a lot of things: The Twitterverse, the decline of trust in the legacy media, Covid, and a spectacularly inept and divisive government. So Poilievre is merely one of the the results of this difficult time, rather than one of the causes. He will be walking a very fine line.
The Washington Post, this morning, is calling this "The GOP's Nihilist Negation" strategy, their lack of any positive message.
It's very old, long pre-dating the Internet; it can be found in "The Paranoid Style of American Politics", 1964 - an essay that should be a required re-read for every political journalist, every year.
The visions of decline, international weakness, are invariably perpetrated by 'shadowy' forces, never specifically named (as I called out yesterday in these comments). Not even clearly-defined (Poilievre's "consultants", but not which, then there's just a few companies). Even the chosen figurehead for the opposition (Clinton, Trudeau) is not the boss of the Shadows, just their willing puppet.
And only the speaker can fix it, of course, since all others are oblivious to the looming danger.
It's an old train that acquired some new riders, recently, and the Conservatives have voted to jump aboard. It depends on societal dissatisfaction. Much depends on the end of war, the decline of energy prices.
Poilievre, Trump, and other populist politicians have attracted support because they call out problems that haven’t been properly acknowledged - unaffordable housing, social dislocation outside of the big cities, etc. Where it goes bad is where they pursue an ideologically-driven and off-kilter explanation of root causes (such as “gatekeepers” as a conspiratorial explanation of more complex macro phenomena) and follow it to bad policy prescriptions. However, since others are not acknowledging the problems or are slow to act, the populists get the support rather than somebody who might actually accomplish something useful.
I don’t see Mr. Poilievre having a vision. All I have heard to date are cries about freedom and criticism of elites. If a guy - an MP since he was 24 with attendant pension and travel perks, can position himself as anti elite - I want to know - what am I?
All a politician has to do is voice concern and empathy for them. He doesn’t have to be one of them. Our Deputy PM was gushing about how great high gas prices were because it would make us focus on global warming. Justin famously referred to them as ‘those people’. Trump is wildly popular with the working class mainly because he doesn’t call them deplorables like Hillary - or terrorists like Biden.
I look forward to actual policy planks more substantive than "Own the Libs'' and "FREEDOM". While I disagree with his nihilistic and reductive tone, I acknowledge that PP is tapping into real and perceived failings in our current government and system. Something does need to change, but tearing things down without a plan to rebuild is worse than continuing to stumble forwards & backwards imperfectly.
Point for those going for the ad hominem attacks on the author, he is not "old/grandpa" (Carlton grad 2006?) nor partisan as he has worked for both LPC and Doug Ford's PC's. Disagree with the message but if you are going to attack the writer take a moment and do a 2 minute fact check.
Pierre Poilievre is simply addressing belief that the current establishment is heading in the wrong direction and that he has a vision to turn it around. That will seem dark to those who are happy with the direction that Trudeau's government has taken. However, Trudeau has built his slim majority on dividing Canadians. That will fail. Poilievre is raising the voices of those whom Trudeau has left behind in his divisive quest for power.
My thoughts exactly. I think we are already at the tipping point. Mostly caused by 7 years of a anti--productive government, exacerbated by COVID-19 and governments that have done almost everything wrong. We need to be able to get back to work.
Yes anti productivity. Making people dependent on a system that is financially broke and relying on a tax system that is maxed and a debt that will never be repayable is not doing anything for anyone. It is crushing the middle class and speaking of crushing how about the Canadian healthcare system. I have never seen such incompetence on so many levels.
No need to be insulting Terry, provide us the links for your proven fact. A county with resources and an economy like Canada should always have a AAA credit rating- that’s does not absolve its managers from justifiable criticism, nor are these credit rating agencies the arbitrator of the discussion. Recent history has stripped them of that absolute authority if they ever had it. Inflation does crush the middle and lower classes. That’s a fact. Literally in textbooks. Take a look at South America in the 20th century - Argentina is a great case study. I’ll agree Canada is not broke- but it sure could use a Paul Martin to step in right now
Yes, yes. They are anti-productve because we spent money we didn't have and can't pay back.
Pay it back? As opposed to the multitude of ‘government workers’ ( how’s that for an oxymoron?) that ‘work from home’ in their new home offices furnished and equipped with government funds?(provided by the taxes extracted from the private sector - that had work hours reduced and occupancy restrictions mandated - if they were permitted to keep their doors open at all)…
The public debt has swollen to over one trillion dollars as a result of panic, mismanagement and the compassionate need for the political survival of this government. Employment statistics indicate the job growth numbers in the economy have been primarily (86%) in government, which the private sector, of course, pays for… We cannot afford this ballooning, corpulent government - it is unaccountable in every sense of the word.
So, what then do you suppose is causing the current inflation we are suffering?
Why in the world would you think that Skippy has an answer to inflation that has hit pretty much every country in the world. Economists cannot agree on just what brought it on this time, or what number if things had a hand in causing it and how long before it passes. Japan has only 2. something % inflation but they were coming out of deflationary cycle, that's not fun either. Some South American countries are seeing inflation of near 200%. The US, the most powerful country on our globe and the worlds largest economy is at 8. 6 or thereabouts, a couple of points higher than us. It's not just Canada. Everywhere is connected to everywhere else. We trade with everyone.
If some bright-eyed economist came up with an inflationary-beating idea, they would probably make her Queen of the world. Harper was an economist, cough, cough, and Skippy thinks that because he stood close to him, it has rubbed off. He's wrong. He has no more answers, even less actually, than anyone who really understands this stuff. And beside, Conservatives don't do that.
Would those be the same agencies that gave high ratings to derivatives based on subprime mortgages that saw hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of triple-A securities downgraded to "junk" status by 2010?
Just asking.
Yeah Thomas, those sneaky agencies are all part of the NWO ... or the WEF ... or somebody. Yeah!
Simply, merely, just, describing PP as if understanding what he is about is all so easy and all so good. PP has no vision, not that he's said out loud or tweeted. He has no policies, just snappy one liners. PP is dividing Canadians along with quite a few who consider themselves conservatives. And when PP paints himself in a corner he simply, merely, just ignores it.
Trudeau has the power, he is the PM. There is no quest except that of wee PP.
Arguments ad hominem don't further your cause.
Excellent response. Thank you.
1. Fringe minority with unacceptable views
2. A pre-election airline/train/trucker vaccine mandate (with no testing option) with apparently no evidentiary support.
3. Carbon caps on energy industry and none on the auto industry
That’s just the top of my head
Glad you’re back and swinging Terry...
As a car enthusiast -- the auto industry has effectively had a carbon cap since the 1970s in the form of tightening fuel economy legislation. Carbon emissions are directly related to fuel consumption. Frankly, that legislation has by and large been successful at the individual vehicle level (nobody would have imagined full-size pickups that can tow 10,000 lbs, have well over 300 hp and get better than 20 mpg in the mid-70s!). As well, the carbon tax at the pumps mean that drivers have an incentive to either choose more fuel efficent vehicles or drive less, though we'll see how that plays out. One of the weaknesses of this approach is that leaps in fuel economy can make it economically viable for people to drive more, meaning carbon emissions stay the same (or even get worse). So, it's one tool, but not a 'silver bullet'.
As someone else pointed out below, those regs have also incentivised automakers to electrify their fleets -- both to offset the impact of higher consuming, high margin vehicles (those aforementioned full-sized pickups, for one) and to produce vehicles that are likely to get cheaper, not more expensive, to produce as time and development marches on.
On a recent flight back from the UK the pilot apologized to the passengers for having to wear masks- because, he sadly noted, “ the science is different in Canada”… a brief but damning statement that pretty effectively summarized what has happened to this country.
I call BS!
Relax! I don’t want you to hyperventilate through that mask… The science in the rest of the world is a rigorous process based on fact and observation - here it was (and still is) based on observation, optics and politics… Not so much about saving lives, as careers and positions. Those “thousands of lives saved” were the bureaucrats ‘working from home’ as small businesses, blue collar and service workers were reduced to government handouts as their livelihoods died…
True -- you don't get the point.
Vaccine mandates for border crossers still allow for variants to enter the country. There is only one way to prevent variants from entering the country. Trudeau was politicizing a public health issue. That's divisive and crooked as hell.
How told you the border mandates were in place to stop Covid or stop variants?
Yeah that would be an 'appeal to majority' logical fallacy but I'm willing to listen if you have the time to explain to me where I'm wrong here.
Terry - we love having you here - you are an almost daily reminder of what we are up against and how hard it is to get people to change their minds once they've made them up.
They mandated their own citizens be vaccinated to travel via air/rail domestically. Something no other western democracy did.
Carbon caps via EV conversions is not the same as carbon caps on the process of producing automobiles. Which is the standard applied to the energy industry.
You absolutely get point 1 Terry... and certainly the HON Mr. Joel Lightbound did as well (my pick for future Lib leader). “A decision was made to wedge and to stigmatize”
It's as Colin says, it's negative meta-messaging from Cons now consolidated in PP. Division is the language you use when you want to break things up.
Turn hurt into hope?
This article by Colin Holgan is a very well written sly attack on Poilievre with slick undertones intended to imply some hidden agenda.
Sounds similar to the old Liberal messaging alluding to Stephen Harpers hidden agenda, which I believe is still hidden.
I was thinking that Colin Holgan could be a speechwriter for Justin Trudeau.
...oops, was that my outside voice?
Well said. These laptop elite just cannot read the room, even when they seem to be trying to do so. Canada is suffering, is at the bottom on economic growth tables, and yet this author will never be hit but what lower growth will do to the average Canadian.
He was a speech writer for Justin Trudea. It's on his Linked In profile page.
He was also more recently a communications manager for Doug Ford PCs.
Nice cherry picking.
Nobody said he couldn't spin a yarn.
I disagree. There was nothing sly about Colin's article. PP's only hidden agenda is scoring some nice axe-hewn wood, at a steal of a price, for his man cave.
Harper's hidden agenda is ongoing. It never stopped when he was voted out by Canadians.
PP is not good for Canada.
This mainstream take drives me mad. We have a Prime Minister and cabinet who are actively destroying our energy industry and have now got their sights on our farming industry - all to serve a globalist agenda. Every litre of oil not pumped in Canada is pumped somewhere else with less environmental regulation. Every pound of food not grow in Canada will be replaced elsewhere - or God help some third world family - not at all. Yet we are told Pollievre is an extremist. The problem the author is going to have is that word is already worn out, along with racist, transphobe, white nationalist, etc. It is applied to everyone not a card carrying progressive all the time. Keep pumping out tripe like this - less and less of us are listening.
I take issue with your statement that the fertilizer issue is fake news by the Conservatives.
I defy you to identify any farm leader in Canada who received any advance notice of the 30% reduction targets for nitrogen emissions or an invitation to participate in the development of a emission reduction strategy.
“Targets are wish list stuff to begin discussions”.
Any Government that is sincere and respectful would invite the people who will bear the burden of the targets to the table BEFORE issuing targets.
Justin Trudeau does not collaborate and is a terrible listener. Canadian farmers can expect the 30% targets to be enforced, probably by a tax at the front end (manufacturing) or retail end (POS).
Gee. Your fetish for parroting the latest Liberal spin/talking points continues to paint you into a corner.
Do some research on the Liberal emissions “targets” on fertilizer, including the harm to the Canadian economy if the targets become mandatory. Considering the Liberal penchant for being less than honest about climate action and how top down mandates continue to wreck havoc on the Canadian economy, farmers are justified to be concerned that they will be the next wedge that pits urbanites and rural communities against each other.
Your Liberals are a sad mean spirited bunch.
Do you actually believe that? Remember, this is a Government that stated the carbon tax would never rise above $50/tonne.
Are we REALLY in decline, the writer asks?
A measurement of decline has nothing to do with wokeness or 24/7 virtue signalling but looking all around and seeing unsettling things like the gutting of respect for Parliament and the lack of public debate on important issues as a result. Or how about the measurable decline in the ability of government to do core services?
Our public health system has been limping along for 25 years and political leaders along the way have become accustomed to pasting over the cracks but the day of reckoning has arrived. The decline is measurable in long wait lists and a burnt out nursing staff.
Our judiciary has crossed over into law making territory, that is measurable decline as Legislators become reactionary to the Courts instead of enacting law in the interests of the public.
Our sovereign interests as measurable in military capacity to defend ourselves is an international parody. The military is demoralized, running decrepit equipment and the political masters are pleased with things as they are. At this moment, the military is worse than in decline, it is near collapse.
I could go on and on, but if Poilievre sees decline and speaks openly about, well it the God forsaken truth. We can’t change things for the better if we don’t admit there is a problem.
I made a glaring omission regarding decline in the post above. Canadians can measure a serious decline in accountability in all of our public institutions. No one seems to be accountable for anything anymore. There isn’t even an effort extended to pass the buck, when big mistakes take place even to the point of being offensive to a civilized mind, there is a collective shrug. No firings, little or no contrition and even worse: those standing in the middle of the wreckage are rewarded with a pay raise.
The result is a race to the bottom of mediocrity. The concept of excellence has become some quaint notion of the past.
Good leaders strive for excellence from themselves and those that they choose to become enablers of a vision for forward progress. Good leaders will never get it right every time, but learn from mistakes made and bring about corrective action for change. Justin Trudeau has devolved into an acceptance of mediocrity, surrounding himself with group think clones that match the output of the leader.
?
Lol. I think the question mark was targeted for you.
Nope, I think it was for you.
None of the author’s argument alters the fact that Pierre Pollievre has tapped into something visceral.
People feel left behind. They believe that long-standing institutions (like governments) have dropped the ball, or that they only work to enhance the lives (and investment portfolios) of those who have already “made it”.
And they are arguably not wrong. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the average family to make ends meet right now. People are afraid - if you listen you’ll hear the fear everywhere.
Trust in government is at an all-time low, and disinformation is rife. Even trust in the business sector - which for a long while has outstripped trust in government (or, heaven forbid, media) - is waning fast. And scandalous corporate profits in pretty much every sector aren’t helping.
Folks on the progressive (or even moderate) side of the debate had better take heed. Calling into question Pollievre’s bona fides ain’t gonna cut it. Real solutions for really complex challenges have to be formulated, communicated and implemented with urgency. It will be hard work, but there is so much to lose if we fail to address the justifiable anger that’s been simmering for a long while.
Vic, I checked Oxford's definition of "visceral": RELATING TO DEEP INWARD FEELINGS RATHER THAN TO THE INTELLECT.
So you are quite right in your comment.
Marty, you didn't know the definition?
Don't forget that the C got more votes than the L in the last two elections.
I understand Terry. But MORE CANADIANS voted against Trudeau by a huge majority. If you add the NDP vote to the Conservatives it is more than 60% so what. My point is that only 5,556,491 Canadians votes for the Liberals.
Dan, there is no spot on the ballot that says "I vote against ....." Crunching your percentages won't work. How about the people who didn't vote at all, can we say they voted against the Cons?
"What he telegraphs is the vision of a social order at a tipping point". H-m-m-m-m...having re-read his para. 6, sounds like a social order "tipping point to me".
Horgan damns "with faint praise"...journalism turned yellow. He takes his extremist projections and coats them in jello..."he does sound like something--something different than what we're used to hearing....an internet language of decline". What bunkish ignorance. The internet is not new. To claim Poilievre has some new insight into its use damns its 55 years of users to being slow learners.
Poilievre is, indeed, "something different" and how that difference will play out is anyone's (including Horgan's) guess. He may fail...as has Trudeau. But this hit piece is a poor substitute for intelligent forecasting.
55 years? If you have been on the internet for 55 years then I'm guessing someone changed your meds. Colin never said the internet was new. Obviously reading comprehension is difficult for you. I do disagree with that one item in an otherwise excellent article. PP is not something different. We know what he is and what we are getting with him, we are just waiting to see how off PP really is.
I agree with most of what is stated here. My problem is not so much the rhetoric being spilled as the fact that he has no solutions to the problems he attempts to bring to light.
A fault in most politicians these days, it seems to me is the demonization of opponents not the offering of solutions to the citizenships needs. I have yet to hear Mr. Poilievre (a gatekeeper and elite) offer a rational answer to any of his beefs. I admit he may be an intelligent man but he still strikes me as someone shouting at clouds and trying to tear it all down as opposed to someone committed to building a long term society for the good of all citizens.
Personally I find this kind of politicking abhorrent, it hits to the lowest common denominator of our society. I can not imagine his brand of populism ever being attractive to me but if it causes the other parties to wake up to issues that have been ignored by most members of political class, it may serve a purpose. The underlying violence of many of his supporters, reflecting from the actions to our south, may not be his fault but he certainly doesn’t do enough to discredit their stances or separate himself from the more radical players.
I have never thought highly of the man since I first saw him in parliament many years ago. He may have matured but I will never support him or his style of politics
It is premature to get into specifics. Poilievre has just finished the first leg of a long, long race.
However, some formidable ideas toward improvement need to be released soon. Reports yesterday indicate that lowly Liberal MPs are pleading for a tack toward the center before it’s too late, so the race is on to solidify ideas and get them out for public view. The other small issue is the fluidity of Liberal messaging and their notorious ability to abscond ideas from elsewhere. As much as Liberals enjoy demonizing Conservatives, they will be on the lookout for good ideas that are finding traction with voters, regardless of the source.
Firing Tiff Macklen is actually a key and formidable idea. The BoC failed in its job of keeping inflation close to 2%. That fact alone justifies firing him in the cause of accountability.
It has struck fear into the hearts of the entire elite of this country, because they can't bear the thought of elite accountability.
And accountability is the one Conservative policy no Liberal would ever steal.
I think you will find that the world failed at maintaining a 2% inflation rate. Not something any Canadian government or central bank has a hope of controlling.
This is exactly what I mean - constant excuses being made, with the implicit assumption being that we must be nice or fair to officials, with literally no other reason given.
If the PM said, "you let inflation get out of hand, you're fired", it would help convince normal people that the Bank will now be serious about getting all the way back to the target.
Normal people? Normal people know that PP can't fire the G. BoC. Normal people already know that the G. BoC is serious. It has nothing to do with being nice or fair. Harper could be the G. BoC and he could not be fired for inflation.
We've been over this again and again. Why won't you believe anyone?
Thanks for the support Lou, woke up to that and lost my patience 😵💫
Just how much control over world economies do you actually believe Canada has, either the government or bank. On a global scale we did relatively well for our national inflation numbers, averaging just under 7%. Also on a global scale Canada has about only 2.5% of the wealth. We simply cannot affect a global problem alone.
So what? The Bank had a clear objective, massively failed. Fire the boss, don't accept excuses.
In the private sector, if I fail, I go out of business. No whining about how it's not my fault will save me. That's what people who aren't civil servants mean by "accountability".
I'm not cruel, though: he should remain eligible for EI.
Is this because technically he would have to demand that the board of directors fire him? This may be a valid point, but I suspect that there is a way that the PM could fire him in practice.
Or are you suggesting that it would be wrong for the PM to fire the governor for failing at his job?
Either way, you are only emphasizing my point, which is that bringing back accountability will be vigorously fought by many.
No Mark. PP cannot fire the Gov. BoC.
In all the years I have been aware of PP I have never seen him get behind anything good for Canadians. He's been an attack dog on command to help distract from what the supposed grownups were doing. He went on a tear about 2x4s just before the price started to drop again. He didn't have a solution he just waved bits of wood around and pointed fingers. I remember him chasing down parents of kids for some Harper tax thing. He didn't want one family to miss out. Creepy weird stalking behaviour. And talk about demonizing. Have you got some time? This puppy has got some serious demonizing on record.
You don't have to like or admire the Liberals. I'm not one. But don't try to sell me a PP I already know and do not care for.
Go listen to his acceptance speech https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=polievere+acceptance+speech&docid=14061367332250&mid=BD2EB59052AAA2B1E822BD2EB59052AAA2B1E822&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
Then go listen to this one from Trudeau: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/newsroom-ready-poilievre-policies-reckless-200000797.html
Done. Mr.Poilievre said nothing I haven’t heard before. That’s a half hour of my life I won’t get back. I have a hard time believing he has a workable solution to anything he brought up. He has only made some very good sound bites for the press. Mr.Trudeau, whom I have never voted for said everything in two words, “responsible government “. On that I can agree. It is what Canadians of all stripes want.
I have watched Mr. Poilievre for 20 years, I have never liked his personal or his party’s direction so a populist speech is not changing that. I disapproved of many of the Harper government decisions from the anti- science, anti environmental moves, the sketchy political machinations throughout their time in office to that atrocious 31 year FIPA agreement with China. I have absolutely no reason to think a Poilievre led government will be anymore to my liking.
I respect your effort. I thought his ideas on affordable housing were workable e.g. but would be difficult to achieve with the multiple levels of government. Still its the best idea on that front I've heard yet. I suppose that your long history with Poilievre will make it hard for him to pull the wool over your eyes but I hope that he can pull together workable solutions that Canadians get get behind. If not, well, more of the same I guess.
I would hope that PP can pull together for some workable solutions that would benefit all Canadians. But I am not going to hold my breath. PP does not play well with others.
If his housing ideas would be too difficult to implement why is he not figuring out ways to make it less so? Why is he bringing it up at all if it's not feasible. Or is it just to throw shade on the Libs, JT specifically. The feds dropped the ball on housing decades ago. No one of any party has felt it a necessary thing to push for.
There is much more than housing to deal with and I don't think Skippy can do the job let alone do it well.
I think the author is onto something here, but my sense is they are missing the other element -- the techno-optimism that did (and still) underpins internet culture. It's the notion that these tools 'democratise' all kinds of things. Instead of news being filtered through a few national and local broadcasters, news is democratised -- with all kind of sources and points of view. Uber democratises the taxi industry, bypassing a whole bunch of rules and regulations. Google democratises knowledge -- providing a world's worth of knowledge to anyone with a computer and a browser.
In that context, railing against gatekeepers makes a lot of sense.
But, what we've seen is that this kind of democratisation isn't without its own issues. News comes from all kinds of sources, including voices we probably would have never discovered before (good) but so does waves of ignorance and disinformation -- and trying to distinguish between the two is actually a pretty heavy lift (bad). Uber created a new kind of flexible job that also offered greater urban mobility (good) but these jobs are poorly regulated -- and in some cases it's almost impossible to actually make money working in the gig economy, once the worker's actual costs/overheads are considered (bad). Having the world's knowledge at your fingertips is valuable (good) but -- like news -- not having a quick and easy way to know the quality (and verity) of the content makes sorting the true from the false, the fact from the opinion, a big job.
So, if Poliviere wants to apply this principle to governance, the question is -- how do you keep the benefits without falling into the demonstrated failures? If freeing us from 'gatekeepers' simply means we're all on our own to try to sort through the scams ... if it's just a way for big companies to avoid meaningful regulation ... if it simply means that the powerful have free reign to gain more power ... that isn't really democratisation at all. I continue to be skeptical -- but am willling to wait to see a policy platform and some meat behind the rhetoric.
Your premise is that people are stupid and need wise leaders to filter things for them and show them what to think and feel. I think most people have a good BS detector and know better than everyone else what works best for them. The whole idea of an internet mediated through some unelected clerisy is appalling to me. What the internet has really demonstrated is that the mainstream media are not objective and are steered by powerful external forces. They probably never were - but it takes all those weirdos on the internet blogging away to chip away at their myth making. I am more than happy to sort through the information myself and make my own judgements - as are most people. For example - I don't think King Charles is a lizard person - but I do think nearly everything we've been told about Covid is a lie, half lie, or lie by omission.
My premise is not "that people are stupid and need wise leaders to filter things for them." Morover, the idea that "people have a good BS detector and know better than everyone else what works best for them" aligns nicely with techno-optimism; the "wisdom of the crowd" is often in theme in why digital solutions are more effective.
I was (and with some healthy skepticism, still am) somewhat of a techno-optimist. A lot of good has come out of a revolution of digital tools and services, but as I've pointed out, that's not been without some significant issues. The digital platforms that have "democratised" so many activities are run by mostly monopolistic private entities where access can be bought and transparency is currently poor. In this realm, we have few gatekeepers -- and the public sector gatekeeping efforts we're considering in Canada are either going to be ineffectural or simply protect incumbent industries.
To me, getting rid of the gatekeepers (or cutting red tape, or whatever the current slogan is) has a nasty tendency to simply empower the strongest and the richest entities (multinational corporations) at the expense of everyone else. That's not because multinational corporations are inherently evil (I actually don't think they are), it's because it takes away what little counterbalance we have against that kind of trans-national corporate power.
The solution, I think, it for government to think of itself a little like a sports governing body, where the goal is to create a highly competitive playing field while protecting individual players.
I'm not a sports guy, but isn't there quite a track record of sports governing bodies colluding with team owners against the interests of the players over things like pay and safety?
A union of working class Canadians against the combination of government and large corporations is definitely something I can get on board with. What would it look like? A trucker/farmer convoy, perhaps?
If you think the trucker/farmer convoy was simply a union of good, honest working class Canadians that spontaneously was born to balance the power of big government and transnational corporations -- well, clearly you have way, way more faith in that movement than I do! Astroturfing (creating seemingly grassroots organizations to serve special interest goals) is way easier in the digital age -- cost effective and much easier to organize.
But, again, that goes back to my earlier comment on the difference between you and I seems to lie in who each of us trusts the least. There isn't really a convincing arguement when it comes to trust, though, especially when none of the actors is consistently trustworthy! So, we can agree to disagree, but I do find your posts thought provoking -- even when I disagree.
I think "movement" is overkill. I think it was a coalition of groups that were fed up with government overreach and felt that they weren't listened to -- which of course they weren't. But a movement --nah. Otherwise is would probably still exist.
What groups, and what are they doing now? Some of them joined TUPOC maybe?
Your coalition offered nothing that the rest of Canada was not already aware of. Some bright -light (/s) thought of a trucker convoy to Ottawa just like the one a few years ago, TY Pat King.
A go fund me was made and it made the legacy media so everyone started pitching in a few bucks. It snowballed.
There were so many different leaders of this thing you'd need a tour bus to haul them out together.
No one wanted to listen to the "truckers" 1st because they had months to complain but waited until the last moment to pull it out. 2nd there was nothing new to talk about. Your groups each had a different list of things with small overlaps with others. It was stupid.
Just because they parked in downtown Ottawa was not symbolic, it was stupid. The PM does not talk to every disgruntled person on their say so. The majority of Canadians, while they didn't like the mandates and the masks and no one likes to get stuck with a needle, did the best we could, and we did it well.
The convoy was essentially a bunch of whiners and hypocrites, collecting CERB or whatever else. Too many never saw any of the millions that was supposed to go to them.
So call it whatever you like Dan. It was a sh*t show.
I'm involved with a number of the organizations involved in the convoy, and if they are astroturf, then it is very subtle indeed - I'm not seeing it myself.
And certainly I would trust the people I met in Ottawa over government or large corporations:
When my daughter and oldest son and I went up the second weekend, she made a couple of cakes to give out to people on Saturday night on Wellington. We met a group of young people and my son, for some reason, handed his cellphone spare battery to one of them, so he could hold and cut the pieces of cake for them, which he did. But then, seeing some other people, my son dashed off to give them cake, and forgot about the battery. He didn't remember it until we got to the other end of Wellington, at which point we all assumed it was too late.
As we were going back to read the signs on Democracy Wall, one of the guys from that group spotted us and came up, and said that they had given the charger to a particular guy at the DJ booth near where we had met them, and put a handwritten sign on a lamppost in case we came looking for it. We went back and it was all so, and we regained the charger.
The convoy was like that - people going out of their way to help strangers. It restored my faith in regular Canadians, which had taken quite a beating after years of broad public support (admittedly under heavy propaganda) for mandates of all kinds.
Of course there were good, kind, wonderful people there. That does not mean we have to accept their take on mandates, masks, vaccines, not to mention bitcoin, born-again nut-bars, the Queen of Canada (off with their heads), the FREEDOM screaming, the MOU and it's supporters, Pat King giving tips and tricks on what to do at a protest, and the crap that the people of Ottawa had to put up with.
You went up the 2nd weekend. You didn't stay did you?
That hot-tub still gives me the creeps when I think of it. Yuk!
Damn Mark, Where were you 40 years ago?
So, government ala Uber is PPs plan possibly?
My contention is that the idea of keeping the benefits without falling into the demonstrated failures is unrealistic. Read Mancur Olson on distributional coalitions to see why. Rather than constantly trying to optimize and failing, we should simply satisfice.
Given that, we have to choose: get rid of the gatekeepers or leave them in place to abuse their power. I believe that many of them are doing more harm than good on net, so we should get rid of them. The correct approach is to look at each group of them separately, and if they are doing net harm, abolish them.
It's very very clear that big companies have completely captured regulators (737 Max, Covid mRNA vaccines). (Or are simply being dictated to by politicians, in the case of big media companies - look at the state AGs' suit against the White House). We are truly better off without them.
On "big companies have completely captured regulators" -- one of the risks in 'getting rid of gatekeepers' is that it potentially takes away any counterbalance to those large corporate interests. In fact, reducing the influence of large corporate actors requires effective gatekeepers -- especially in terms of preserving competition and ensuring that corporate interests don't simply socialize problems created by their businesses while privatizing profits.
I do like the notion that commentator (and business/marketing prof) Scott Galloway has put forward, which is we've decided that big corporate interests should be protected and individuals should compete where a healthy capitalist democracy would do the opposite -- ensure that corporations have to compete tooth and nail (as it maximises the benefits of capitalism) while protecting individuals (e.g. workers). Basically, we should stop bailing out companies and industries and instead support workers as sectors change/evolve.
As you point out -- corporate interests fund political campaigns and have a professional capability to continually lobby politicians for legislation that suits their interests. Smaller companies don't have that capacity and individual people simply have their vote. It creates an unhealthy asymmetry. My worry is that simply losing the gatekeepers opens up more ground for those large corporate interests as they have the resources and are deeply motivated to protect their interests in a way that's hard to compete with.
That said -- I'm still at the "working to define the problem" stage -- I don't have a lot of good answers (yet).
One potential solution is to more explicitly specify and limit the powers of gatekeepers, after reducing their number and reach. There should be relatively less lawmaking in the agencies (regulation) and more in parliament and legislatures (law). That aids transparency and discourages chicanery. Legislation should also be required to be succinct and readable, even page limits. But less and smaller government, with fewer and clearer but strictly enforced rules, is the way forward.
I disagree, which comes from my belief that politicians are more maliable (as their campaigns and infrastructure need donations to survive). Regulatory agencies are less easy to corrupt -- and most of the corruption seems to happen when people make the jump between industries and the agencies that regulate them (see -- financial regulation!).
A capable government relations program will literally give legislators draft legislation to propose, which serves two purposes. It gets adventagous language into the resulting legislation and plays on the fact that governments are always fighting the clock, trying to squeeze new initiatives into a four-ish year mandate. Regulatory agencies, on the other hand, are in for the long haul -- those folks ain't going anywhere!
Both regulatory agencies and elected officials are, of course, corruptable and -- to your point -- at least elected officials can be voted out. But, I think the motives and mechanisms tend to mean that big companies have more influence on elected officials as opposed to regulators -- and that a lot of the influence on regulators comes via elected officials.
The oligopolies are gatekeepers! The eliminate competition, stifle innovation and drive up prices and drive down wages. They need to be broken up an future mergers stopped.
Which oligopolies are the gatekeepers?
The problem is that having a set body of regulators gives corporate interests something to work on and ties them together with the bureaucracy - look at how big companies and FDA/Health Canada collude to minimize discussion of mRNA adverse events in order to cover their mutual asses. This mutuality of regulators and regulated is inevitable - if regulators allow anything to go forward at all. And, of course, when they don't, that creates yet more problems.
Of course, once the state starts controlling the media, as in Canada and the USA today, mutuality becomes an unholy trinity of state, giant corporations, and media vs the people and small businesses. Which is where we are now, and why desperate measures are needed.
If there were no regulators, people could still sue in court for legal violations. Sure, the companies would have more money for court costs, making it a heavy lift (although class action lawyers do ok), but at least there would be no institutional interest within the state to cover up their misdeeds.
It's really important to bear in mind that incremental reform is simply not going to work. All the players are well entrenched and doing what they are doing for very good reasons. A government can only rule through the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy will only do what it "wants" to do. Any kind of direction from above, unless it is crystal clear and enforced by brutal discipline, will simply be ignored.
So figuring out the ideal scheme is not useful, unless you can also figure out how it will actually come to pass in the face of determined resistance - from the combination of bureaucracy, media, and large corporations.
It's funny -- I disagree, but in formulating a response, I quickly came to the conclusion that our differences really come down to: "who do you trust the least?"
I've worked in both government (and non-profits) and the private sector. My takeaway -- we tend to want to paint one group as evil ("the other") and I'm sure that exists in spots. But, in most cases, my observation is that people tend to follow where the strongest incentives nudge them.
In the private sector that tends to be growth, profit and competitive advantage. In the public sector, it's finding budget and gaining career advancement, which tends to follow the evolving policy goals of whatever government is in power. That tends to give the private sector more room to manouver -- it has more sources of funding and more avenues to advance its interests. So, I tend to be more skeptical of the private sector not because I think there is some kind of giant corporatist plot (and, if there is, I don't know the secret handshake) but because there's more opportunity there to amass capital, power and influence.
I think you are far more distrustful of public institutions and feel like individuals have the tools can counter the private sector threat (and, correct me if I'm mischaracterising you!)
But, honestly, trust is so much based on personal experience ... I think we'll always come at this problem differently, but I don't have a good argument that says: big public institutions are inherently more trustworthy! Plus there are other dimensions of trust beyond "are they evil", particularly "are the competent?!" which a lot of our institutions (public and private) aren't doing so well at recently!
I don't trust either of them, and I don't think either of them are on my side. They both have constraints from people like me, in the form of competition. And they both have an interest in eliminating competition through illicit means, which they will do if they can get away with it.
My real thinking is "how can we structurally assure, as much as possible, that they are opposed to each other, rather than in collusion?" In the conflict of the giants, we can have some freedom. When they work together against us, as now, forget about freedom.
Experience and public choice economics have clearly shown that regulation doesn't stop, and in fact increases, collusion. Let's learn from that.
When you say that businesses amass capital, power, and influence, I say "influence over what". Is the answer not, in fact, "government"? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I'm still waiting on someone to tell me exactly who are the gatekeepers, then tell me why they should go. What power are they abusing? Groups of gatekeepers? Who should regulate the airlines and vaccines and media? Which state AG is suing the White House and why should we care?
Olson died in 1998. Has no economist expanded or developed his work since?
Can't remember an article that so hit the nail on the head, but the nail is through the author's own point. Yes, Poilievre speaks in atmospheric language but that's because he correctly reads that the atmosphere created by Trudeau is one of complete and absolute fantasy, of a Canada that is evil and must be ripped apart and made whole again in his leftist image. Poilievre, rightly, rejects Trudeau's fantasy and instead is reflecting back what people are telling him: it's getting harder and harder to live day by day. That's the problem, and this comms 'expert' falls into the same trap that most all of the laptop fall into, they can't see it's getting harder because for them, it's not harder. Grow up.
In his last sentence he seems to be doing exactly what he is accusing Poillievre of doing. A quick reading of Mr. Horgan's Linked-In cv is quite informative.
Mr. Horgan, What logic supports the conclusion that you are drawing? Because Mr. Polievre is telling us that things are broken, when he becomes Prime Minister we will be at greater risk? We have the motivation to fix things when we are convinced that they are broken. Mr. Polievre has the motivation to fix things.
The concern is that he has no intention of fixing things. He's telling people what they want to hear to gain power. We know he's an ideologue. That's someone who follows a book instead of reality. The book appears to be anything out of the Heritage Foundation in the U.S.. He tried to introduce Republican voter suppression methods in Canada. As Senator Frum said on the radio, "Why should we help students vote when they don't vote for us?" He adores Thomas Sowell who is a PR guy for trickle-down economics. PP is basically an errand boy for the Koch Network. I think this is why he dodges the media and debates because he doesn't want to answer questions on this. I'd like to know if he thinks the last American election was stolen. The answer to that question would be very telling.
Where are the facts? Where is the proof that PP is an errand boy for the Koch network? Who says that trickle down economics did not serve its purpose at the time? Does PP dodge media more than others and all? Are these opinions well supported with facts or is this response perpetrating misinformation. We need a healthy debate that welcomes all opinions but mudslinging responses and insinuations play to the trolls. We should all raise our game in these discussions if we want our children to learn how to have a civil debate.
Ok, let's have a healthy debate. I finally looked up "conservative movement" and discovered that it was started in the '60s by William F. Buckley and others to repeal the New Deal (!) Since then the Koch brother(s) have been the significant funders. They and their cronies are behind the Tea Party, climate change denial, gerrymandering, voter suppression and packing the US courts with sympathetic judges and on and on. They pretty much control the conservative movement and anyone who is on board is their lackey whether they realize it or not. Trickle down economics DID serve and is still serving it's purpose by making the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. THIS is what most of us are upset about. Call it "globalism" or "neo-liberalism" but it's all about sucking money to the top and it has worked way too well. The best book I can recommend is "Democracy in Chains" by Prof. Nancy MacLean. If you want to understand current American politics t's all there. And, yes, Canadian politicians, right or left, are very influenced by their American counterparts. PP has dodged a few leadership debates. I do not trust any politician that does that because it means they don't respect us enough to answer the hard questions. Our problem is that both Liberals and Conservatives serve the corporate masters. Neither PP or Justin are talking about cutting welfare for the oil industry, for example. And that is heavily influenced by the Koch crowd. Those people know global warming is real but they don't care because they make gobs of money from it and don't want to stop. That's where we are now. IMHO.
Actually the Conservative Party dates back to Robert Peel in the 1830s. Here we had a Conservative as our first Prime Minister. In the US, there has always been a conservative/progressive divide. Buckley, for his part actually started the National Review in the mid 1950s.
I said "conservative movement" not Conservative Party. Look it up.
Peel, as in Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, UK PM. Father of the modern conservative party, almost 200 years ago, which makes him not so modern. Definitely an elite.
Trickle down economics started with Reagan in 1980. One would think that 42 years is enough time for it to be an obvious success story.
Exactly. great for the rich...economic failure for everyone else. Like the "brilliance (note sarcasm) of deficit financing, one of the biggest lies ever told.
Ah! I love a good left wing conspiracy theory. They're just as juicy as the right wing ones.
The "Fair Elections Act" was not a theory. PP is known as an ideologue. We'll see if he actually reaches out to voters who don't lean Conservative.
It’s unfortunate that our current prime minister has done so much to encourage the polarization and destabilization of our citizens. Perhaps it’s just the culmination of a lot of things: The Twitterverse, the decline of trust in the legacy media, Covid, and a spectacularly inept and divisive government. So Poilievre is merely one of the the results of this difficult time, rather than one of the causes. He will be walking a very fine line.
You got all the buzz words and phrases can you now flesh them out because many of us do not speak Con.
Terry I find it interesting that you always ask for proof and details yet you rarely cite reliable sources in your posts.
The Washington Post, this morning, is calling this "The GOP's Nihilist Negation" strategy, their lack of any positive message.
It's very old, long pre-dating the Internet; it can be found in "The Paranoid Style of American Politics", 1964 - an essay that should be a required re-read for every political journalist, every year.
The visions of decline, international weakness, are invariably perpetrated by 'shadowy' forces, never specifically named (as I called out yesterday in these comments). Not even clearly-defined (Poilievre's "consultants", but not which, then there's just a few companies). Even the chosen figurehead for the opposition (Clinton, Trudeau) is not the boss of the Shadows, just their willing puppet.
And only the speaker can fix it, of course, since all others are oblivious to the looming danger.
It's an old train that acquired some new riders, recently, and the Conservatives have voted to jump aboard. It depends on societal dissatisfaction. Much depends on the end of war, the decline of energy prices.
"It depends on societal dissatisfaction." Exactly. And it seems that that is where we are. So if society is dissatisfied change would make sense, no?
Poilievre, Trump, and other populist politicians have attracted support because they call out problems that haven’t been properly acknowledged - unaffordable housing, social dislocation outside of the big cities, etc. Where it goes bad is where they pursue an ideologically-driven and off-kilter explanation of root causes (such as “gatekeepers” as a conspiratorial explanation of more complex macro phenomena) and follow it to bad policy prescriptions. However, since others are not acknowledging the problems or are slow to act, the populists get the support rather than somebody who might actually accomplish something useful.
I don’t see Mr. Poilievre having a vision. All I have heard to date are cries about freedom and criticism of elites. If a guy - an MP since he was 24 with attendant pension and travel perks, can position himself as anti elite - I want to know - what am I?
All a politician has to do is voice concern and empathy for them. He doesn’t have to be one of them. Our Deputy PM was gushing about how great high gas prices were because it would make us focus on global warming. Justin famously referred to them as ‘those people’. Trump is wildly popular with the working class mainly because he doesn’t call them deplorables like Hillary - or terrorists like Biden.
It's a low bar
Freedom and criticism of elites actually are a vision - fire the whole lot of them and let people decide for themselves.
Of course he is an elite too - but a hated one because he is (purporting to be) a class traitor.
I look forward to actual policy planks more substantive than "Own the Libs'' and "FREEDOM". While I disagree with his nihilistic and reductive tone, I acknowledge that PP is tapping into real and perceived failings in our current government and system. Something does need to change, but tearing things down without a plan to rebuild is worse than continuing to stumble forwards & backwards imperfectly.
Point for those going for the ad hominem attacks on the author, he is not "old/grandpa" (Carlton grad 2006?) nor partisan as he has worked for both LPC and Doug Ford's PC's. Disagree with the message but if you are going to attack the writer take a moment and do a 2 minute fact check.